Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Tip #44: Weight Gradebook items by category or by item

Tip: You can weight Gradebook items by category or by item.

Here’s how to do it:Navigate to your course Control Panel and click Gradebook. Click the Weight Grades button. Select the option to Weight by Category or to Weight by Item. Assign weight percentages to the desired categories or items. The percentages must add up to 100%. Click Submit to save the weights.

NOTE: After you assign weight to Gradebook items or categories, you cannot remove the weighting option from the Gradebook. Add weighting to the Gradebook only if you are certain that you will continue to use weighting the entire semester.

Weighting by Category:Weighting by category allows you to assign a weight percentage to a particular type of Gradebook item, rather than to each Gradebook item. For example, you can weight all course quizzes at 30% of the students’ total grades. Each time you add a quiz, the weight percentage for each quiz will adjust accordingly.

To use this feature correctly, it is important that you assign Gradebook items to appropriate categories. You can change a Gradebook item’s category by clicking the Manage Items button in the Gradebook and clicking the Modify button next to the Gradebook item you want to change. Select a new category for the item and click Submit.